Monday, July 16, 2018

Business shorts and why I'm very pessimistic about climate change

Climate change is a very real and serious problem. Fully addressing it is going to take powerful leadership and quite frankly sacrifice. Most major plans to true deal with the issue will require the general public to pay more for energy, transportation, and/or change their lifestyle in ways they do not want. Ways that on net will make people somewhat worse off since they will need to pay for the pollution they created which up till now has been mostly free. Yet despite the challenge what makes me most pessimistic is not the political rhetoric or the need for collective sacrifice but fashion.

There is one amazing truly win-win-win thing we could do the help with climate change, business shorts.

Six percent of all electricity produced in the United States is used on air conditioning. If men were encourage to wear business shorts during the summer instead of long pants or comically impractical wool suits, we could reduce that number. It would be a win for businesses and organization who get to spend less on AC. It would be a win for the planet. Finally, It would be a win for the people in the shorts. Having lived in both the DC and NYC region having to go to work in full pants when it is over 95 degree with 80% humidity is torturous.

Yet for some reason business shorts aren’t widely adopted. Most importantly the top business leaders, non-profit organization leaders, and politicians who claim climate change is a massive threat are still walking around DC in business suits in the middle of summer. They think we need bold action and shared sacrifice, but they aren’t even willing to risk looking unfashionable even it if could save the planet while making the so much more comfortable. Our leaders would rather let the planet burn and live with swamp ass than having people see their calves.

If our leaders aren’t going to make this most minor of personal sacrifice for the goal and first try to push society to adopt these win-win-win solutions, I have no optimism we can ever do the hard stuff. When I finally see a senator in shorts this summer I will believe we are taking climate change seriously.

1 comment:

  1. I'm very pessimistic about climate change alarm. That is not to say climate does not change, will not change, or can cause problems with change. Remember that first and foremost, climate is simply the common parameters of weather. Plotting trend lines of a background that makes a Mexican Jumping Bean look stable may seem clever analysis, but all it is is suppressing variation so as to find an average. That this happens on a planet mostly covered by water and open to wild convection effects and microstorms as well as more general ( and large ) situations like hurricanes points up the ridiculous nature of plotting temperatures readings on a limited number of fixed sites as if that would help define process. ( The first thing to remember about so-called 'greenhouse gases' is that they are gases, and cannot 'contain' energy transfer. Convection makes a lie of that idea, which does not even help allow for ground being wet as having an effect on temperature - or clouds obscuring the Sun. Air above water may be heated by that water, just as it is in heating systems. If general 'open' conditions were equivalent to greenhouses - they would not work. )
    On a planet with a day/night cycle, seasons, and oceans storing latent heat and having a capacity as a liquid dwarfing the potential of a trace gas into total insignificance, the notion that CO2 is a 'control knob' should meet its first stumbling block when you realize it is in solution in water - and will be released into the atmosphere with warming trends.
    It is very revealing that the only scientists who actually are paid to forecast future conditions within a timeframe that means accuracy is verifiable are significantly unconvinced that 'climate science' exists. I am nasty enough to consider it a form of sci-fi - 'climate fiction.'
    And what about all those scientists supposedly flogging certainty in a world which lacks it ? Beats me. Making noise suppressing disagreement is not science - but political rhetoric. But if you want to make sure you do not stray from the narrative of politically correct views, 'peer review' ( an editorial scheme ) is fine device to conflate with 'science.'
    I prefer Feinmann. " I would rather have questions that cannot be answered than answers which cannot be questioned." Years of surfing have torn back obscuring and supposedly unaccountable curtains of ignorance that people actually do have views which do not bow to what seems propaganda because of incessant repetition - especially by the state.The title of this piece is so typical that it is an instant reminder of a public drive to control dialogue. "How can I convince someone climate change is not a hoax ?" The actual content is quite at variance with that premise. A tagfile allows more similar content to be quickly identified. https://oldephartte.livejournal.com/109769.html

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